


Love of a Friend

by holy_milk



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Background Femslash, Finwean Ladies Week, Gen, Marriage of Convenience, Mother-Daughter Relationship, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 06:13:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20634425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holy_milk/pseuds/holy_milk
Summary: Míriel spends the last night before her wedding in her mother's house and learns some things she never dared to ask about.





	Love of a Friend

She was sitting on a wide windowsill in her bedroom — soon to become her old room — situated just above her mother’s workshop. Telperion was in full bloom, and from the hill the house was perched upon the whole of Tirion was in sight, glistening peacefully in its silver radiance. The room was dark, and she had changed into her nightgown hours ago but seemed to have no intention of ever going to bed, looking out of the window at the city below and twisting a ring in her fingers absentmindedly. 

If she heard a quiet knocking and then the sound of her door being opened, she gave no sign of it. She didn’t turn around when her mother came into the room.

“Míriel, dear,” she said in her low deep voice, breaking the silence, “you should have some sleep. The celebration will take no less than a day, they say, and you’ll have to see it all through.”

“I know, Mother,” Míriel replied evenly, her face still towards the window.

Telpemeldë stood by the door, taking in the sight of her daughter, outlined against the silvery glass. She might have seemed calm and quite untroubled to a stranger, but her mother knew better than that. She could see the tenseness in her shoulders, the slight anxiety in the lines of her body. She noticed the way Míriel cast her head down, hiding it behind the curtain of her fair hair, and the busy momevent of her nimble fingers.

The two of them were different in many things but absolutely identical in the way they looked and behaved when they didn't want others to know they were troubled.

Quietly, she crossed the room to sit on the edge of Míriel’s bed, and waited for her daughter to speak — but Míriel stayed silent. 

In the end, Telpemeldë was the one to break the silence.

“Are you having second thoughts?” she asked softly.

“Why would I?”

“I thought you might… I’d understand that. I did.”

Míriel turned to meet her mother’s eyes, her pale face alit with curiosity.

“You did?” 

“Yes,” there was a ghost of smile on her lips. “I was sure about it, right up to the night before and then… I started having my doubts," she hesitated for a moment. "I... didn't love your father as much as he loved me — not in the way he would want me to."

Míriel couldn't hold back a sigh. Deep down, she had known that for years but there was still a certain feeling of finality in those words.

It had been horrible to see them drifting apart from each other — and parting ways, eventually — especially when all the other families around them seemed so happy and perfect, and just the way Eru — or was it the Valar? — intended them to be. She had grown since then, of course, and now she knew that the way things appeared to be was not always the way things were.

And for the most part, she had accepted the way her family was, but her parents had never talked about it and she hadn’t had the nerve to ask questions.

“Why did you marry him, Mother?” she asked suddenly, emboldened by the fact that Telpemeldë herself chose to mention it.

“Your father is a good man, and he had been a close friend of mine through many journeys and hardships before we came here.”

Míriel said nothing but stared at her expectantly, as if urging her to continue. Telpemeldë sighed and dropped her gaze on her hands.

“Some people say that the Allfather intended each and every of us to have someone they love and who returns their love wholeheartedly. I don't know if that was truly his intention in the beginning, but if it was, I guess it was lost in the Marring. Your father loved me, but my heart belonged to another.”

“Then why didn’t you-?” Míriel started, but her mother shook her head, not letting her finish.

“Much was lost on the Great Journey. In the end, I don’t think I was the only one to marry out of friendship rather than love.”

A silence fell as Míriel contamplated on what she heard.

She thought of Finwë. He was kind and honest, and brave, and caring, and he loved her deeply — the fact he had made painfully clear many times over. She loved him, too — as a hero, as her King, and as a good friend.

She knew her marrying him would make the King happy — but what would it make her?

“You came to regret it, though, didn't you?"

“Regret?” Telpemeldë cast her head back, looking thoughtful. “No, I wouldn't say that." 

Míriel drew her brows together, and Telpemeldë had to bite back a laught at the look of confusion on her daughter's lovely face.

"But you parted ways!"

"We did, eventually. But that was in the very end, wasn't it? We had had many long years before that, full of joy, understanding and companionship. We had had the fairest child in all of Aman.” Telpemeldë looked at her affectionately, and Míriel couldn’t hold back a smile. "So, the answer is no. It may not have ended in the best possible way — for all of us, but especially for you — but I wouldn't change any of that even if I could."

Míriel leaned back and looked at the ring she still held in her hand. She had no reason not to believe her mother.

“I’m glad to hear that,” she admitted.

Telpemeldë rose to her feet and came to the window, resting a hand on her daughter’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to go down that path if you don’t want to, though,” she said quietly, her face growing sober. “It was a choice I made, but you're free to make your own.”

Míriel said nothing and slipped the ring back on her finger. It had been commissioned by the Noldoran himself and made by one of the best Noldorin jewelers — a ring worthy of a future Queen. The gold looked beautiful against her pale skin, silvery in the light of Telperion, and the tiny rubies adorning it glistened like the drops of blood that had once spilled from under her needle, back when she hadn't quite mastered the art of sewing yet.

She flexed her fingers slowly and sighed, leaning back into her mother’s touch.

“I think I made my choice,” she said.

Her mother pressed a light kiss to her temple.

“Then go get some sleep, love,” she whispered.

**Author's Note:**

> Tolkien gives us basically no information of Míriel's past and family whatsoever, and, of course, I use that as an excuse to let my headcanons run wild.
> 
> I named her mother Telpemeldë (which is supposed to mean something like 'silver-lover', I guess) for no other reason than that I like how it sounds.


End file.
